'Planned attack': Protection rackets or miner gangs suspected as motives for tavern massacre

The rampant gangsterism in the country is suspected to be the reason behind the Soweto tavern massacre at the weekend.

Violence prevention expert Gareth Newham believes links to protection rackets may be a plausible motive.

“In this case where it's a place of business and it didn’t seem to be related to any robbery, the shooters just arrived and started shooting randomly, one possible motivation has to do with extortion. What we have seen growing across the country are different groups involved in different kinds of extortion,” said Newham, head of justice and violence prevention at the Institute for Security Studies.

“For some years now we have seen, for example, what is commonly called construction cartels. What they are trying to do is strong-arm and muscle money out of people doing work of construction, especially state infrastructure development.

“More recently in parts of the Western Cape, we have seen extortion groups preying on small businesses, taverns and spaza shops. They are basically organised gangs or groups and they go around from business to business in the township areas and demand money for protection.”

Newham said it might have been a case of more groups operating and one wanting to dominate.

Two other tavern shootings are under investigation by police — in Katlehong in Ekurhuleni, where two people were killed, and Sweetwaters, Pietermaritzburg, where four people were killed and eight wounded. Two suspects have been arrested by KwaZulu-Natal police.

In the Nomzamo informal settlement in Orlando East, Soweto, 23 people were shot inside the Mdlalose tavern. Twelve people were killed on the scene and three died later in hospital. Eight wounded patrons are still recovering in hospital.

Police minister Bheki Cele, who said at least 137 spent cartridges were found at the scene of the Nomzamo shooting, described it as a “bloody weekend”. 

The attacks on the taverns in the two provinces were more coincidental than co-ordinated, he said.

“In Soweto, it was a brutal war in there and quite clear that these murderers wanted to kill as many people as possible. Police are working around the clock and all resources and personnel are out in full force to find these criminals and piece together the motives behind these senseless killings. Wherever these men are, they must know: we will not back down, we will not rest.”

Newham said: “That is a large number of shots if you are thinking of a tavern, people sitting in the kind of closed business place, drinking. To fire 137 shots in such an area, you are obviously trying to kill as many people as possible or wound them and injure as many as possible ... This is quite a planned attack to try to cause as much damage, injury and death to people as possible.”

Security specialist Calvin Rafadi believes gangsters who are rife in illegal mining should be investigated for possible links to tavern attacks. They are heavily armed with unlicensed weapons which they use in their fight to control territories close to their mining sites, he said.

“The modus operandi of these gangs is to just come and shoot randomly. That is how they send a message.”

Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said the problem was the general state of lawlessness and the availability of guns.

“These things have been happening very often. It is just a reflection of the general safety, I don’t think there is any specific cause in a way that we need to look at this thing in isolation,” he said.

“We know that we are used to seeing this in Cape Town — Nyanga and in Gugulethu — but the trend gets around the country, because usually, you are going to find the criminal element, some small-time gang, turf wars and it boils down to the criminality within our system and how it has become tolerable.

“There are many of these if we look around. Those taverns have become what you can call very risky areas and it's also because of guns being easily available in our society — this is a reflection of the general state of the lack of safety in our areas.”

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